How to Encrypt Files & Folders on Windows?

Microsoft Office Suite provides us a very simple and easiest way of keeping our all files and folders on our windows computer, as it gives us a built-in encryption feature for creating a password for protecting all Office files, such as Word documents or some PowerPoint’s presentations.

However, some Windows operating systems also come with the Encrypting File System (EFS), which allows their users to encrypt any kind of file, folders or any subfolders.

Although, the EFS is available only for Windows 10 Pro, Windows 7 Professionals, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8 Pro or Windows 8 Enterprise. Users with a Home edition of the Windows will always need to use either Office Suite encryption or any other third party solution, such as TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt or 7-Zip.

What is Encrypting File System (EFS)

The EFS is the Windows built-in encryption tool which is usually used to encrypt files and folders on NTFS drives. Any app or individual which doesn’t have any key cannot be open any of the encrypted files and folders. This EPS is only available for Professionals, Enterprise and Education editions of the Windows.

Some Experts and professionals advise BitLocker as it is more secure and safe. However, it only depends on personal circumstances. For all the home users, EFS might be a very well and sufficient protection from all the nosy members.

Steps to Encrypt Files by using Microsoft Office

The process of encrypting individual files is compatible with Microsoft Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. When you encrypt your file, then you will need to reopen it in the Microsoft Office, you are not able to open it in the Google Docs, Adobe Reader or LibreOffice. The steps are discussed below.

1. Click to open a Microsoft Program.
2. Then, click to open Other Documents.
3. Next, click on the Browse
4. Now, choose a file that you want to encrypt.
5. Subsequently, click on the Open
6. Click on the File option which appears at the top of the page.
7. Then, click on the Protect Document option available on the left side of the page.
8. Therefore, choose Encrypt with Password option from the pop-up menu.
9. Click to Enter a Password for the file.

Note: here you will be prompted to re-enter the same password, then click on the OK option. After this click on the Exit this files tab. Now you need to enter the same password to re-open the file.

Hopefully, those above will help you in encrypting your all file and folders by using the Microsoft Office Suite.

Harry Williams is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2002. As a technical expert, Harry Williams has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as office.com/setup.

Source: Encrypt files